I think once you hit retirement age, you should be able to legally consume whatever drug you want. You only have a few more decades left, so you can't really damage your body much more than Father Time is already doing, and it could make your last decades more fun. Just don't drive near Farmer's Markets and no harm would really be done.

Interesting that the low doses tended to increase the feelings of depression. Could be the amphetamine-like attention to detail, common to those doses, might have promoted further reflection on their illness. Low doses (60-80 micrograms) administered to subjects tasked to `problem solve' resulted in better than null result (RAND study back in the `50's).

Norway completed a large retrospective study last year (no evidence of increase in mental health problems/some indication of improvement):

Now, still waiting for those flashbacks? Think you were ripped off?

"In this study, lifetime use of psychedelics and past year use of LSD was not associated with past year symptoms of visual phenomena ("seeing something others could not"), panic attacks, psychosis, or overall serious psychological distress. Thus, our findings does not support either the idea of "flashbacks" described in extreme cases as recurrent psychotic episodes, hallucinations, or panic attacks, or the more recent "hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder" (HPPD) described as persistent visual phenomena with accompanying anxiety and distress. All of the purported symptoms of HPPD are also present in people who have never used psychedelics. Occasional visual penomena are common in the general population, especially among people with anxiety"

Capo Del Bandito:Kumana Wanalaia: And ecstasy was originally used in psychoanalysis to give patients greater empathy.

Huh, never tried that. But I did figure out through experimentation that certain strains of marijuana give me a psuedo-sense of empathy (usually my empathy button is in 'off') or at least giving me a way to understand (if not feel) what might be upsetting or exciting to people who weren't me.

1977: A friend of Shulgin's, psychologist Leo Zeff, begins to prepare for retirement from his practice. While starting to clean out his office of memorabilia, he invites Shulgin over to see if the chemist would like any of the items. Shulgin, in turn, brings him a gift: A small vial of MDMA, and a suggestion that he might find the material worthwhile. Leo, who was experienced with psychoactive drugs and had used them in his practice for some patients, accepted the gift without committing to whether or not he might try it.

Several days later, Shulgin receives a phone call from Leo. He has tried the MDMA. He no longer wants to retire. Instead, he begins to utilize the new drug, first in his own practice, then introducing other therapists to it. The ability of MDMA to help patients overcome emotional barriers was so striking that one psychiatrist dubbed it "penicillin for the soul." When Dr. Zeff passed away years later, his widow estimated that the network of therapists using MDMA had grown to about 4,000.

Based on my own somewhat extensive studies in the late 70's and early 80's I can totally understand this. In addition to the constant trip smile the drug induced, I always found myself with a refreshed and clear perspective on life the day after

DerpHerder:I've come to the conclusion that hallucinogens induce extreme paranoia in me. Mushrooms after two successful trips caused me to have a spat of psychosis for two weeks and still to this day bothers me when I think about it. Pretty much turned me off to all 'drugs'.

Not to get too New Agey here, but this is a generally known fact: while most people inclined to drop acid in the first place will have benign and revelatory trips, some people find that whole "my personality is melting!" aspect to induce terror or to set off (perhaps) pre-existing mental issues.

I mean, let's face it: LSD mimics to a degree certain flavours of disassociative psychosis. The funny flavours, as far as I can tell, but that's just me. Feeling my ego turn into steam while I see eternity in a grain of sand, etc. clearly amuses me.

So (and here's the New Agey part), I never gave anyone LSD without acting as a sort of spirit guide or "trip advisor": the vast suggestibility of someone on 'cid means that if you yourself are undosed or lightly dosed, you can (in my experience) help people around any ill-effects or weirdness. But I do agree that hallucinogens are not for everyone. For those whose brain chemistry allows, however, they can lead to literally life-changing insights, as they are the opposite of drunk: memories and thoughts experienced on LSD can be recalled decades later.

That's why you trip in benign and preferably naturalistic settings: you don't want to be overstimulated and you don't want to deal with crosswalks. Food can be problematic, too: I once spent several weeks of subjective time chewing on a ham on rye with a smear of Dijon. Great Caesar's Ghost, that was an epic sammich.

fusillade762:fluffy2097: Kevin Lomax: I don't know what "enough" acid is but I've never had a flashback. And I did a pretty fair amount in my younger years.

I've done enough that I literally lost the plot. Had no idea what was going on in the universe. Pretty epic stuff.

No flashbacks.

/no telling what happens to you when you take fake acid, as it can be any number of chemically similar molecules

LSD is one of the most potent chemicals known to man. There's no way a tiny piece of blotter paper could absorb enough of anything psychoactive, other than acid, to effect you. If the acid were fake it wouldn't do anything. That's also why all those stories about LSD adulterated with strychnine are bullshiat.

Also done a ton of it and never had a flashback.

Your information is decades old. there where lots of blotters going around when I was in high school more than five years ago, none of it was acid. sure they'd tell you it was, it wasn't, it was one of many newly synthesized stimulant hallucinogens. the stuff my friends and I became aware of was widely known to be D.O.D. which is sorta like 2-CB from what I've read only way longer acting and active in much smaller amounts(less than a milligram it'll fit on blotter). this stuff would take 4-6 hours to kick in(longer wait than acid) and would last 12-24+ hours depending on dose. we were warned by the dealer to NEVER take more than three hits, it seemed strange because from what I had known about acid the upper limit was however much it took to make you go crazy not 3 hits dude. by the time I had found out what I was taking I had become comfortably with taking a single hit. Then one day before school I decided to take two hits, then I decided to take two more after second period when the first two started kicking in. How long did I trip for? that's really hard to say, 36 hours? a week? a couple months? the shiat messed me up for a while according to friends I became pretty weird and anti social for a couple of months. but yeah it's not just acid on blotter these days not even mostly, that kind of misinformation will get kids into trouble.

D_Evans45:Flashbacks are not fake. You havent eaten enouch acid if youre refuting their existence. Ive experienced flashbacks personally on several occasions and have close friends and family who have as well.

Not quite sure the length and duration of them. I hesitate to speak out about prior drug use for fear of glamorizing it, however, the two notable times I had anything like a flashback were these:

1) The first time I did acid. Took two hits. Apparently they were very strong. I spent the most of the trip in a friends apartment. He had hardwood floors, and I spent most of my time looking at the grains of the wood. They were obviously moving, breathing, etc, the usual hallucinatory stuff (there were other better things, but I'd rather not go into them). Days or weeks later, whenever I saw woodgrain, it was still moving, and breathing. So much so that I laughed for a few minutes at the fact my friends vinyl woodgrain Aries K station wagon was breathing.2) This time wasn't so laughable. After taking a healthy dose, and tripping all night on a mountain, I still had hallucinatory effects. There was a swirling spiral pretty much in the center of my vision for , oh, about a week. It could have been due to bad, or mis-prepared acid, this was of course, the 90's and good LSD was hard to come by. I really had a little bit of a freak out about that, but it eventually went away.

jj325:Based on my own somewhat extensive studies in the late 70's and early 80's I can totally understand this. In addition to the constant trip smile the drug induced, I always found myself with a refreshed and clear perspective on life the day after

Same here. I watched a lot of sunrises as I came down after a hard trip. It was awesome how it would calm me the fark down and get my head on straight. I left a lot of mental baggage from major BS behind in that state of mind.

Mad_Radhu:I think once you hit retirement age, you should be able to legally consume whatever drug you want. You only have a few more decades left, so you can't really damage your body much more than Father Time is already doing, and it could make your last decades more fun. Just don't drive near Farmer's Markets and no harm would really be done.

Sheryl: [to Frank] He started snorting heroin.

Frank: [to Grandpa] You started snorting heroin?

Grandpa: [in response to Frank, aimed at Dwayne] Let me tell ya, don't do that stuff. When you're young, you're crazy to do that shiat.

Frank:[to Grandpa] Well what about you?

Grandpa:[to Frank] What about me? I'm old. When you're old you're crazy not to do it.

Mad_Radhu:I think once you hit retirement age, you should be able to legally consume whatever drug you want. You only have a few more decades left, so you can't really damage your body much more than Father Time is already doing, and it could make your last decades more fun. Just don't drive near Farmer's Markets and no harm would really be done.

That's how the Hmong do it. They are big growers and smugglers of opium - but using is off limits for those in their productive years. The elderly, on the other hand, are allowed to sit back and burn a few pipes every day, to soothe the pangs of aging. Seems reasonable.(Note- the above used to be true - I doubt it is much anymore - the Hmong have probably lost a lot of their tribal identity.)

jj325:Based on my own somewhat extensive studies in the late 70's and early 80's I can totally understand this. In addition to the constant trip smile the drug induced, I always found myself with a refreshed and clear perspective on life the day after

I was a bit of the opposite. I always felt like I had seen the Matrix the next day and it never felt quite right. I never had any bad trips with all that I had done, but being back in "reality" wasn't enjoyable.